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Book of Exodus, chapter twelve, And we commence there in verse thirty seven. While you find the place, let me say that if you wish to do some homework for next Saturday's session, then the homework appropriate would be to read chapter fourteen of this book of Exodus. But now tonight in chapter twelve beginning at verse thirty seven: The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot, that were men beside children.
And a mixed multitude went up also with them, and flocks and herds, even very much cattle. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual. Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the self same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt. This is that night of the Lord to be much observed of all the children of Israel throughout their generation. And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover. There shall no alien eat thereof, but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A sojourner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house shall it be eaten.
Thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall ye break a bone thereof. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee and will keep the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof. One law shall be to him that is homeborn and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
Thus did all the children of Israel, as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they. And it came to pass the self same day that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast, it is mine. Moses said unto the people, Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place.
There shall be no leavened bread eaten. Verse eleven: And it shall be, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanite, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee, then thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the womb, and every firstling which thou hast that cometh of a beast. The males shall be the lords. And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among thy sons thou shalt redeem.
And it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? That thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage, and it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the womb being males, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.
And it shall be for a sign upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes, for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt. God give us a heart and mind to understand his holy word. From our reading of Holy Scripture this evening, one thing becomes immediately apparent. Israel had not been five minutes on the road that led them out of Egypt into freedom, and what God began to explain to them, the significance and the implications of the Passover that had just taken place.
And from the divine urgency with which he set about these explanations so soon after Israel's departure from Egypt, we may learn at once how important that Passover was, how important were the implications that it carried. Certainly the Passover was important, but not only important, the Passover was literally unique. Never again would there be a Passover of this kind. Many times in the future, of course, the Passover would be remembered by suitable ceremonies.
But a Passover night in which the angel of God's judgment stalked through the land and executed the wrath of God on all who were not sheltered by the blood. Never a Passover night like that would occur again. Israel were now setting off into the desert, and through the desert into their great inheritance. Along their road, there would be many discoveries made, many blessings entered into. Along that road, there should come many enemies and many battles. But however far they progress, however resplendent their blessings, however tough the battles they would be called upon to face, never again would they need to be redeemed by the blood of a Passover lamb from the wrath of God against sin?
The Passover, I say, was not only important, the Passover was unique. Generations of Israel should grow up in centuries to come, living in the luxuries of the land of Palestine and munching their grapes and enjoying their honeycomb. And every generation that ate its good in the land of Canaan and enjoyed that inheritance would have to look back to that one single event, the Passover that took place in Egypt, and attribute to it the basis of all their subsequent enjoyment.
Not a blessing in Israel, ever, but what could be traced basically to that once and for all Passover celebrated in that night in Egypt. I have only to describe the Passover thus, and you will at once see it has immediate parallels with another night, likewise unique in history. That night in which our blessed Lord was betrayed. That fearful night, shrouded in three hours of darkness from the eye of man, when the sword of Jehovah woke against the victim that was his son, and the blood of Christ was shed for sin, that we might be redeemed from the wrath of God through him.
That sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord is utterly unique in all history. It shall never be repeated. Types of it there were before it happened, but it itself never happened before. A memorial supper there is to that event constantly repeated still, but never again is that sacrifice repeated. It was a once for all act, a thing never to be again enacted, when Jesus Christ, our Lord God's Son, bowed beneath the wrath of God on Calvary and cried at length, it is finished.
However great and marvelous are the blessings that we now enjoy. However far beyond our present imaginings are those great kindnesses that God shall show to us in a coming eternity. Not one of those blessings, but what can be re- attributed to this unique event, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Because then the Passover in Israel was a unique historic event that carried such basic importance, God took steps immediately that Israel should begin to remember this thing and annually celebrate it in order that its memory might not be lost to the children of Israel.
Of course, I dare say that as they came hot speed out of Egypt, the Israelites might have imagined that this was a something unnecessary. They might even have said in their hearts, as they heard the command from Moses, but how would we ever forget it? However long we live, should we all of us live to be Methuselahs in our own right? How should we ever forget it? This great night of the Lord in which we found deliverance. But God knew the human heart, knew how easy it would be for subsequent generations, enjoying the blessings that this Passover had brought the nation.
Even though they got, uh, enwrapped in the blessings, God knew how easy it would be for them to forget it their basis. And therefore he commanded that all subsequent generations should keep yearly a Passover sacrifice that should remind them of that initial and that unique happening, when the wrath of God was averted on that original night. Ah, but when God instituted this, this memorial, he was not merely thinking of remote generations. You would scarce credit the story unless it stood in holy writ.
Israel were not but more than a few months out of Egypt, when the very people that had witnessed that Passover night forgot completely what it was that had delivered them. And strange as it may sound, a few months out in the wilderness and they were concocting other theories to explain how it was they had become free. In another evening, we shall have to consider their sin in detail. Suffice it tonight to anticipate a little, and I will remind you how it happened.
It happened when God had come down to Sinai's mount and summoned Moses to ascend the mountain to meet him. And Moses had come to the people with God's propositions, and the people had accepted the covenant, and Moses had gone back up the mountain to meet God. And as he ascended up that high mountain and beyond the clouds, he was temporarily lost to their physical sight. Of course, he had said he would come back. But he was gone some days. And as presently one day followed another, and he didn't come back.
Some bright, intelligent fellow, I think he had a PhD at least, observed to his fellow Israelites, is this not altogether strange and a remarkable thing? How come we to be sitting here in the middle of a wilderness? And this fellow Moses that you talk of, that is supposed once upon a time to have led us out of Egypt, where is he? Gone up the mountain, you say. Well, why doesn't he come again? Oh, said somebody, tut tut, but before he went, he said, if I go away, I shall come again. Ah, yes, said the other fellow, but they were saying that last Tuesday, and he's not back yet.
And isn't it altogether unreasonable that we should be stuck here in the middle of a wilderness with nobody to guide us and nobody to lead us? And come tell me, this, this Canaan thing that Moses was supposed to speak of, anyone around here seen it? Anyone around here been there? How do you know it's there anyway? It's only hearsay, you know. Perhaps it's mythology and needs to be demythologized. Look, come, we must have something more solid than this to rest our hopes upon. And so they put their heads together and presently concocted a scheme.
And plucking off the earrings from their ears, they gave them to Aaron, who made a golden calf with them. And they instituted another festival and danced before this molten calf, and as they danced, I beg you to hear what they said and what they sang. Remember, please, they were but a few months out into the wilderness. And as they danced around this golden calf and bowed to it, they said, these are thy gods that brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And it staggers credibility.
People should have forgotten so soon what it was and who it was that brought them redemption and freedom. Or at least it would stagger credibility. Were not the human heart the same all down the ages? Why, how can we in Christendom say that things have been altogether better? For now, there are current theories in Christendom too. Alternative theories.
They offer redemption to man, they offer improvement, they offer deliverance, but not by the blood of the sacrifice of Christ, but by other means and by other gods and by other powers, by social engineering, by educating the masses, by political performance. Therefore, it is that God, no sooner had Israel come out of Egypt than he instituted this annual feast. Yearly they were to celebrate Passover and thus remember how God brought them out of Egypt and what was the basis of their redemption.
In similar fashion, our blessed Lord instituted for us a memorial supper. Indeed, he waited not till five minutes after his sacrifice had been made, but on the very night in which he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had break it, he gave to them, saying, this is my body which is for you, eat of it. And in like manner also the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, all of you drink it.
As often, says the New Testament, as we eat that bread and drink that cup, we show forth the Lord's death till he comes. And why think you he made this ordinance for us, placing it as the central thing by which we should remember him? I think for that self same reason as God instituted the Passover in Israel, that constantly and continually Christians all down the ages might see before them, vividly represented in the literal symbols, what it is that lies at the basis of their redemption.
Theoretically speaking, you know, we might have expected our Lord to have used one of a number of things by which we should remember him. He could, we imagine, he could have ordained that when Christians gather together, one of them should be deputed to stand up and read, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount. Is it not a lovely collection of our Lord's teaching? Is it not vitally important to the formation of Christian character? Isn't it the thing by which he shines in the eyes of many people who are concerned with moral standards? Why then didn't he ordain that regularly someone should rise up and read liturgically the Sermon on the Mount.
But he didn't do so. He could have ordained, could he not, that someone should have got up and read those marvelous stories of his miracles of grace, that all might remember him as one who came and performed in our midst signs of divine wonder and mercy for men. But even that he did not choose as a means by which we should remember him. He chose that we should take bread and wine and eating and drinking them. Remember him by showing forth his death until he comes.
It is not, of course, that we repeat that sacrifice. On that score, the New Testament is abundantly and explicitly clear. When, for instance, our Lord Jesus told his disciples to celebrate this supper and gave them the bread, he said, take this and not offer it in sacrifice, take it and eat it. And similarly, when he took the cup, he did not say, take this and pour it out as a drink offering to God, but take it and you yourselves drink it.
Not then a renewing of the sacrifice, but a memorial of the sacrifice. And if that left us still in any doubt, then the epistle to the Hebrews banishes all misunderstanding and tells us that our blessed Lord, having offered one sacrifice for sin forever, has sat down at the right hand of God. In consequence, there are no other sacrifices needed, but more, in consequence, the sacrifice of Christ itself does not need to be offered again. There is no more offering for sin.
But memorial there is. That written indelibly on our hearts by means of its constant repetition, and held constantly before our eyes by our constant observance of it before. Will be those memorials that tell us that the basis of all our redemption is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord. Let me not sound as though I were laying down some irksome law.
Is it not our delight as Christians thus to remember him? We shall certainly find, as we get along the journey, that it is a marvelous comfort thus to remember him. For us, as for Israel, there will be many battles on the journey. I, and what's more, we shall not win every battle, though we shall win at last the war. For us too, there will come times of defeat and disappointment and dejection. Indeed, there will be times perhaps in our lives when it seems to us that instead of making progress, we are going round in circles, fast getting nowhere, just as Israel did in the wilderness.
And in those days of disappointment and seeming failure, then it will be a tower of strength to us to remember that our acceptance with God does not depend on how well we progress across the wilderness. Our freedom from Egypt does not hang on how well we fight the enemy. Our deliverance from the wrath of God does not depend on how far advanced we are in our experience of God. But whether we have advanced a little way, or whether we have advanced a long way, whether we are making progress at this juncture, or at the moment standing still, or alas, going back a little, yet still it remains the basis of our redemption from the wrath of God and our acceptance with him is nothing but the blood of Jesus.
How many dear Christians there are that's get unnerved in the Christian battle, and becoming unnerved, grow despondent and are near to giving up because they have fallen into the mistake of supposing that their acceptance with God does depend on their progress. It is not for me to belittle the importance of progress, and we have many lessons waiting for us in store on that particular topic as we go through this book. But first things first, and basic things at the foundation. If we would be valiant in the fight and able to overcome at last, then let us settle it in our hearts that the basis of our deliverance from the wrath of God and our acceptance with him depends solely on the sacrifice of Christ.
They who have learned to put their trust in that sacrifice as the sole foundation can argue as taught by God's Holy Spirit. Why, if when we were sinners, God loved us and gave his son for us. If when we were still God's enemies, Christ died for us. If that be true, and unalterably true, then how much more shall we be saved through him?
We were unwise, were we not, to neglect the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Life, I know, can be very busy, and our supposedly Christian duties sometimes leave us little other time. I repeat, we are unwise to neglect the Lord's Supper. I remember one of my students, dear girl, she wasn't mine really, she was somebody else's, nonetheless dear for that. Coming along and paying me the privilege of confiding in me that she was finding her Christian pathway difficult.
She had been busy here and there, nobly serving the Lord. But like us all, had struck a difficult patch and was feeling weak and discouraged. As we talked, I grew a little bit bold and, uh, trying not to sound like an uncle. I said, tell me, when were you last at the Lord's Supper? She could scarce remember. She hadn't made a habit of it. She thought it was a thing that you might easily, uh, forget and pass over, that it wasn't really very important.
Come, let me say to you what I said to her. Whether we understand why it is important or not, who are we to question God's wisdom? Who are we to turn round to the Blessed Lord and tell him that we don't really need to do what he has ordained that we shall do? Oh, come. On that very night in which he was betrayed, on that very night when he went forth to bear God's wrath for our sake and deliver us from our bondage, on that very night he called upon us constantly thereafter to take bread and wine, and in all simplicity to come back to the very basis of everything and to remember him.
As we do so, we shall find it become a source of sustenance and strength and firmness and solidity. We shall find in it a perennial source of encouragement. Who then may keep the Lord's Supper? Before I answer that, I turn once more back to my ancient text. Who may keep the Passover? In verses forty three following of our chapter twelve, God lays it down quite clearly who they were that were to be allowed to keep the Passover.
Everyone that is circumcised, he said, shall keep the Passover, but no uncircumcised person shall- person shall eat of it. You say, but is that really fair? I mean, doesn't God love Egyptians as well as he loves Israelites? Why, if this Passover is so tremendously important, why good- wouldn't God welcome everybody to this Passover feast? Didn't he love everybody the same? Didn't he love Egyptians as well as Israelites? Why, of course he loved Egyptians as he loved Israelites. That isn't the point, is it? This Passover feast was a memorial of a redemption that had taken place.
It was a more memorial to those who had been redeemed, that they had been redeemed. If then you would partake of this feast, its first qualification was that you had been redeemed and that you belonged to that holy nation that had been redeemed of the Lord. Why, if Egyptians wanted to be redeemed, if they wanted to join themselves to Israel and trust in Israel's God, so they might. The way was open for everyone to come and trust Israel's God. Was it Ruth the na- the the Merbites who came with her mother-in-law?
Well, then God, uh, would accept her. But first they would have to come. And first they would have to believe. And first they would have to take their place with the people of God and submit to the outward sign, the sign of circumcision. For you see, the Passover, as we were thinking in an earlier study, was not merely the means by which God saved them from his wrath and forgave their sins.
It was the means by which God freed them from Egypt and set them on the path to leave Egypt. Come, what will you say to the Egyptian? I see him coming up the road to argue with Moses. He wants to enjoy this first Passover, says Moses. All right, my man, then you'll come and join us and believe in God and you'll be circumcised. Oh, no, no, he says, no, no, I wasn't want to stand with you Israelites. I mean, you're leaving Egypt, aren't you? And I didn't want to take things as far as that. I mean, I'm a moderate man myself, a little religion, not too much, you know, not too excessive in your zeal, but I want to honor God, and I, I, I want to believe in him, but of course, I don't want to track with you across the desert.
And in fact, I have no intention of leaving Egypt, but mayn't I join in the Passover? You would have no difficulty in answering that man because his attitude makes a mock of the whole thing. Yes, all may partake who are willing to trust God and leave their Egypt and be redeemed and travel to their inheritance. But there is no redemption, and therefore no partaking of that Passover memorial. For those that are not prepared to repent, are not prepared to leave their Egypt.
All who would partake, therefore, had to be circumcised. And what shall circumcision tell? Here we shall have to tread very slowly and carefully, and call upon our minds to come up with perhaps razor sharp distinctions. We are, after all, talking about circumcision, aren't we? But some people there are who have thought that circumcision in the Old Covenant represents baptism in the New. And indeed, there is a scripture in the New Testament, it is found in Colossians chapter two, that when you first read it, seems to say that, if you read it quick enough.
It says, this is Colossians chapter two, and verse eleven: in whom, that is in Christ, you Christians were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, wherein you were also raised with him through faith, in the working of God who raised him from the dead. There you are, says somebody. Does it not say that, uh, baptism is in fact circumcision? Well, no, it doesn't say that, does it? Pray consider this circumcision with which we Christians are circumcised.
It is here described as a circumcision not made with hands. Israel's circumcision was a literal one, and it was, of course, made with hands. Our circumcision is not made with hands. Now, having established that clear fact, let's ponder a moment Christian baptism. And here I'm not particularly concerned at this moment, I would be at others, in what particular way the baptism is, is performed. Remember every baptism you have ever set eyes upon, and can you remember or not whether it was done with hands?
I think perhaps you have never seen a baptism performed that wasn't done with hands. So Christian baptism performed with hands is not the same thing as this circumcision that is performed without hands. Christian baptism is indeed important, but far more important is this spiritual thing, performed not with any human hand, performed by divine power, performed at the very depths of our personality.
That cutting by which the roots of our personality were cut, so that, as Saint Paul puts it, we are no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit. Yes, truly, the flesh is still in us. But we have God's word for it, that though the flesh is still in us and we feel its presence, we, the real we, we are no longer in the flesh. Oh, praise God for it.
We are in the spirit. There was a time, my good friend, when before you met the Savior, you were in the flesh. Your very personality was rooted in what God calls the flesh, that rebel thing, that fallen thing. How are you now otherwise? You tell me, do you not, that should one of these days, should you die physically and your body be laid in the grave, then when the Lord comes, you hope to rise to meet the Lord.
Tell me, that old flesh, that rebellious thing that has troubled you so long and resisted your spiritual advances, tell me, when you rise to meet the Lord Jesus, will it still be with you? So, oh no sir, no sir, thank God, no, that'll be gone forever. Oh, how interesting and how blessed. Pray tell me, how will you get rid of it? What sort of detached it from you and you from it? Was it going into the grave that did it?
Was it those little worms that gnawed it all away? Why, if it's the worms that are going to gnaw it all away, let the worms start now, I say, while we're still here. Do you not agree? Now, it's not the worms that shall do it. And the impenitent that rise to meet the judge shall rise still in that rebellious thing that God calls flesh. The thing that has cut the roots of our personality who trust Christ, so that we are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Is that profound operation of God's Holy Spirit performed in the heart when we first repented of sin and trusted the Savior.
Here then Saint Paul upon the topic, writing in Philippians chapter three. We are the true circumcision, he says, the real thing of which physical circumcision was but a prototype. We are the circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and have no confidence in the flesh, who stake their faith and hope for salvation solely in Christ. Have learned by Paul himself to take his own righteousness, which is of the law, and cast it overboard.
In order to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness which is of his own, but that which is through faith of Jesus Christ. Have you come there, friend? Abandoning all faith in yourself and your imagined goodness, owning yourself as once subject rightly to God's wrath, have you come to that point where forsaking faith in all else, in true radical repentance, you have put your faith in Christ?
Then in God's sense, you are circumcised, and you are fit to join in that glorious memorial supper that is the Lord's Supper, in which constantly we remember his death. With that, we turn to another implication in redemption and in the Passover. Chapter thirteen spells out for us how God told Israel, and watch again how soon he told them after their coming forth, that he would re- expect redeemed people to live a holy life.
Sanctify unto me, he said, all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb. We turn now to face God's clarion call to holiness of living. We shall find it here dealt with negatively and then positively. Holiness in this sense, the Israelites were asked at this time of year not only to celebrate the feast of Passover, but therewith to celebrate also the feast of unleavened bread.
For a week, there was to be seen not one spot of leaven in all their houses. Their houses was to- were to be ransacked and swept from corner to corner, and every last crumb of leaven swept clear of their dwelling place. No leaven. God's command to what you may call negative holiness. There was the positive command to positive holiness. The firstborn amongst Israel were to be holy to God, were to be devoted to him, positively separated to the Lord.
And still today for us, it is one of the immediate implications of redemption that we begin to live a life of holiness. Indeed, when it came to sweeping leaven away, God didn't wait till they had set foot on the road out of Egypt. He told them even before the Passover was celebrated, before they sprinkled the blood on their houses. God told them that if they would keep this Passover, then must they be prepared from that very moment on to keep this feast of unleavened bread.
It was a decision, therefore, they had to take the very same night in which they were redeemed. If they wish to be redeemed, they must be prepared to make a clean sweep in their lives. And for this ensuing week, to have done with the leaven. Oh, there was no deception here. There was no possibility that, having got them out into the wilderness, Moses should have come to them one day and said, my, my dear good folks, now, you know, that bit of food you're eating is wrong. How's that? Well, it's leavened, isn't it?
Well, I know it is, but what's wrong with that? Well, you know, it's not good for, for folks that have been redeemed to be eating leaven. Who said so? Well, God said so. Well, you never told us before. Oh, we weren't prepared for this. No danger of such a situation arising. Moses preached the gospel to all and sundry in such terms as they were clear from the start. Seek for this redemption and find it, it will involve you at once in a life from which leaven has been purged. Of course, in Israel, it was only a symbolic thing, and the life without leaven merely lasted a week per year.
And what is more, originally, it was occasioned by a simple physical and historical fact. When they came out of Egypt, we are told, there was no time to make leavened bread, and so they took their dough and they pushed it into their belongings, and off they went and had to be content with unleavened bread for the ensuing week. But that fact, brought about by that simple historical circumstance, came to the Jews even to seem significant and symbolic of something deeper. For the rabbis among the Jews, many of them felt that leaven, by its very nature, was a symbol of a corrupting and fermenting influence.
And when at length we come to the New Testament, we shall find the New Testament taking up leaven, and in particular this particular feast of unleavened bread, and openly and frankly using it as a symbol. In one Corinthians chapter five, Saint Paul reminds us as Christians that we have had a Passover sacrificed for us. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. And immediately the apostle adds, let us therefore keep the feast. What feast? Why, the feast of unleavened bread.
Not now, of course, the literal feast of unleavened bread. But at a deeper spiritual level, we are to keep the feast not with the old leaven of malice and hypocrisy, but with the unleaven of sincerity and truth. Nor is it merely that once a year we go through some ritual performance. The feast of unleavened bread that we are called upon to keep lasts a whole lifetime, unremittingly. Pray notice with me once more.
There was no interval. No time between being redeemed and the beginning of leading a holy life. Thus does God, did God impress on them, and therefore on us, that they who claim to be redeemed are expected forthwith to begin a life of holiness. Our Jewish friends, even in this city, still, still observe this feast once a year.
They observe it literally. And the more Orthodox among them, with meticulous care, cleanse their houses when it comes near to this time. Indeed, housewives who would use their pots for this and that and the other in the kitchen, banish all those pots and get a new set of pots, just in case there might be a bit of old leaven stuck to one of the pots and they hadn't noticed it. With meticulous, one might almost say fanatical, though certainly loving zeal, they seek to carry out the literal feast and banish literal leaven.
Shall we who know the Savior, the divine reality, the Passover Lamb, be less meticulous, less careful? Oh, I know it is beyond our power to cast out all evil from our lives immediately and forthwith. But we are committed to begin the process. We are committed diligently to carry on with God, seeking constantly the grace and power of his Holy Spirit to proceed with this thing. It is our bounden duty.
It is our duty at the individual level, is it not? We are to bala- banish malice and hypocrisy. Oh, how easy to pretend we are different from what we are. To go around play acting. To make it sound as if we have progressed further than we have progressed. How guilty we preachers are of doing that. So let me interpose a warning. You will not take from anything I say tonight, or have said, or shall yet say, that I am claiming that my life is free from all levin, leaven, and that I am experienced des- experiencing daily and constant victory.
Far from it. If you have any charity in your souls, you'll be praying for me more than you pray for others. How easy it is for a preacher to say one thing and do another, and to make it look as if he were good, when all the time there are glaring difficulties and failures. My dear Christian, we have no need to pretend. I, even I have no need to pretend.
I can go home this night and in the privacy of my room bear my heart and personality to God. He sees it anyway. I may confess all the ugly things I have found there, all the weaknesses I find within. I may stay a while and let him point to weaknesses I have not yet found. How can I do it? Why, yesterday I sat at the Lord's Supper, and I remembered that while I was yet a sinner, God loved me.
And Christ died for me, knowing the worst. And if today I have been disappointed with myself at what I have discovered, God certainly is sorry, but he is not disappointed. He knew it and loved me. And oh, how I praise God that at the rock bottom of it all, my redemption depends here that he loved me while I was yet a sinner and accepts me still, whatever he finds within.
And it gives me courage. I can stop pretending I'm better than I am. And I be- can begin to face myself and the leaven and the ferment within me. And in a courage supplied by God's love, ask his grace to strengthen my arm to wield the broom and the brush and clear another little bit of leaven out, perhaps for good. And we shall have to apply it to our churches, shall we not?
Indeed, one Corinthians five that talks to us of this matter, talks to us particularly of our duties as members of Christian churches. There had arisen a case in the church of Corinth where a man who was called a brother had committed such an outrageous and antisocial sin that Paul, inspired of God, commanded that that good man must be excommunicated. And the occasion was taken so that we might be told that if such and such and such and such people, constantly showing these particular features of their living, claim to be brothers, and these attitudes and deeds are so outrageous and so antisocial and so dishonoring to God and to the church that such must for the time be excommunicated.
It is a duty that some churches have found difficult to face and to perform. Indeed, some have said that it is not for us to cast anyone out of a church. They have argued that our Lord himself forbade any such thing, and they quote in support our Lord's parable about the wheat and the tares, where a man planted wheat in the field, but an enemy sowed tares. And when his servants saw this, the servants came to their Lord and said, Lord, look at these tares. Wilt thou that we root them up? And the master made answer and said, no, not root them up.
Let them be. Let them grow together with the wheat, lest in seeking to root up those tares, you root up the wheat as well. Let both grow till the judgment, and then the division shall be made. And some Christians, as I say, have taken that parable and applied it to the church. They have said, there you are, it is our Savior's express wish that the genuine and the false should be together in church fellowship and all accepted, uh, and be part of the visible church on earth until the Lord comes and separate the old tares from the wheat. But it cannot be true, can it?
It cannot be right. Were it right, it would contradict flatly what Saint Paul says in one Corinthians five. And then, moreover, when we look at our Lord's parable, it was told us not concerning the church, but concerning the world. The field in which these things are sown, said he, is not the church. The field is the world. At that level, not even God himself is making his discriminating judgment. The world goes on until that great white throne shall decide the issue. While outside the church God weighs, within the church, ah, that's another story.
And here we are expressly bidden that if a man that is called a brother be such and such and such, then sadly but solemnly and firmly, he must be excommunicated. You say, will not that give us a, a, a reputation for being narrow-minded? Perhaps it will. But it will do a tremendous lot to make your gospel more credible. Would you have us return to the medieval age, when men who were public and notorious sinners and profligates and oppressors of the poor, and immoral into the bargain were allowed to sit as prominent members of the church.
Who will ever credit the gospel of a church that allows notorious sinners undisciplined in her ranks? To allow such in the church is to say to the world that we preach a gospel that tells that there is no real difference, or at least none that we could make, and that be you sinner or saint, be you profligate or devoted follower of Christ, you have a right to be within the church. There is no such gospel. Why, even before they left Egypt, did God insist that they cleanse their leaven out? And the plain implication of redemption is this, that Christian churches must cleanse from their midst those explicit cases of sin that the Bible has recorded and listed.
And finally, the positive side of holiness. Said God, from now on, every firstborn male of animal and men shall be sanctified and set apart for God. What was the logic behind that demand? The logic was plain and simple and easy to be followed. Said God, pray only remember that you Israelites were once in Egypt, and on that night of Passover, when the angel of my wrath straw- stalked through the land, had not the Passover lamb died in your place, all your firstborn would have died.
Today your firstborn live, but they live solely because I provided a ransom for them. Therefore, says God, had it not been for my sacrifice, they would have had no life to live. I, because I have redeemed them with that sacrifice, count them mine. They have been bought with a price. They are no longer their own. They are mine and must be given to me. We'll pass over the animals, for none of us is a sheep or a donkey, or at least I hope not.
Let us simply confine ourselves to the human beings. All the firstborn were to be gods. But then God relented, if we may thus talk of div- divinity. For it wasn't practical in those days that every firstborn should minister to him in the sacred things of the tabernacle, and so they were allowed to buy themselves off, so to speak. A multitude of these firstborn were allowed to buy themselves off by substituting Levites, paid professionals in their place. So they paid the professional, and they gave him his eat and his drink, uh, and he did what they should have done.
I dare say some Israelites found that attractive. You wouldn't, would you? My brother, my sister. Redeemed as we are by the blood of Christ. Are we looking around for somebody else to fulfill our obligations to the Lord? Come, surely not. The option is not open to us anyway. We have been bought with a price.
We are no longer our own. We are called upon to yield our bodies a living sacrifice. In Israel, not only could you do it that way, but what few men were left over, because there weren't enough Levites to go round, were allowed to buy themselves off with money. Sometimes all unannounced and by crafty passages and subterranean channels that run beneath our personalities, there creeps occasionally into the thoughts of some of us that, uh, it's still possible to buy off the claims of holiness upon life.
Suppose only I present God with a fat check every now and again and contribute to this charity and to that church, then that's my job done. And I don't have to be so zealous as that evangelist. I don't have to be so devoted as that Sunday school teacher. Uh, I can go like ordinary men go, so long as I pay my money. Oh, but friend, that isn't possible. For if you would buy off your life from devotion to Christ, to be honest, you would have to pay at least what he paid for it, wouldn't you?
Can you pay it? How much did it cost Christ to buy you? Can I put a price on it or measure it? Shall I ever fathom it? That he, the living one, became dead, and he, the rich, for our sakes became poor. Thus did he buy us.
May rather let us hear the exhortation of scripture, nor let us rely upon our emotions merely, but call our logic into play and argue this way. In our moments of devotion when we feel like serving God, and in those other moments when we don't feel like serving him. Still, let us summon logic's power and reason thus, that if one died for all, then that means all died.
For without his death they must have perished. Then he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but to unto him that died and rose again for them. Come, may God's Holy Spirit so speak to us the love of our Lord. That as we learn logically to argue thus, the love of Christ may envelop us around and thus constrain us to live lives not only holy, but positively devoted to him and to his service.
Shall we pray? Lord, we have read about that ancient Passover. We stand now centuries from it. We have thought tonight more of the death of Christ our Lord, thy Son. We stand centuries from that as well. Oh God, our emotions are not enough to maintain within us a spirit of devotion to thy Son. Help us, we pray, therefore, to bring a spirit of obedience in the doing of thy commandments, that we may regularly remember him at the Lord's Supper.
Help us by thy spirit to apply logic's power, to consider the implications of this tremendous fact that Jesus Christ once died for me. So let us learn to live in increasing holiness and ever greater devotion until the journey is finished and we reach the promised land, never to go out anymore. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
